by Jan Karon
Sammy made some noise with the feed bucket. The bull came running across the pasture; the heifers at a slow trot. ‘I pray,’ said Sammy.
‘Me, too. Do I ever. Glad you’re home. Everybody wants to shoot a game with you even though they’re quakin’ in their boots. Harley, Doc Harper, Blake, Rebecca Jane, Tommy . . . ’
‘Gonna sh-shoot just one game today. We’ll draw names. I need to get offa pool for five minutes. Get my head in another place.’
‘No pressure. You like it up there in the big city?’
Sammy looked across the field to the mountains. And back to where a really great vegetable garden could go in by the barn.
‘I like bein’ down here b-better, but no way to make a livin’ doin’ what I do. Chicago is t-total pool action.’
‘Come home anytime,’ said Dooley. ‘Whenever you can. You’ll always have a place with us.’
You’ll always have a place with us. He liked hearing that; he needed to hear that.
• • •
Thereth a baby in there,’ said Etta.
‘A boy!’ said Ethan.
‘Mom, is that why Aunt Julie’s tummy is so big?’
‘I have a great idea,’ said Lace. When would she and Dooley have what it takes to do what had to be done? ‘Etta and Ethan brought you a jigsaw puzzle. You had a jigsaw last summer and loved it. We can put it on the table in the library where there are lots of people to help. And I’ll help you set up.’
‘How many pieces?’ said Jack.
‘Fifty. Do you think you could put together fifty pieces working as a team?’
‘I can do fifhthy peethees,’ said Etta.
‘She can’t,’ said Ethan. ‘Only this many.’ He held up ten fingers.
• • •
He stepped out to the kitchen porch and speed-dialed the nurses’ station.
‘Kennedy here.’
‘Kennedy, you’re always there. Do you never go home?’
‘This is home, Father. I’ve been here a hundred years, remember?’
‘I need to preach you a sermon about taking better care of yourself.’
‘Do not preach me a sermon. So he’s not doing much better than when he came in, he lost his speech, bless ’is heart, and no, you cannot talk to Dr. Wilson, he has been in to see Mr. Packard twice and things are stabilized. So please don’t call the doctor, Father, this is the weekend, in case you haven’t noticed. Let him take care of it.’
‘What do you think, Kennedy?’
‘I cannot answer that, medically speaking. All I’m prayin’ for is a gleam in his eye.’
‘For the nurses?’
‘Ha ha, very funny. No. A spark of life is what I’d call it.’
A stroke with speech affected. He felt the long exhaustion of the whole thing.
• • •
A TV weather alert cited heavy snowfall at higher elevations. Buck, Pauline, Beth, everybody was concerned.
He tried Father Brad’s cell, but got the voice message. He knew service was nearly impossible up there; that’s why Father Brad had to find the sweet spot on the ridge before calling out. Beth had tried her mother’s cell to no avail.
He didn’t know the name of the youth counselor who was with them, but would try to make some calls and figure it out when they got home. In the meantime, he assured himself and the others with simple reasoning:
Wrangling teenagers was a handful. Being in love was a handful. Cooking a meal on a log must be a total handful. So in other words, they hadn’t heard from the ridge because Father Brad’s and Mary Ellen’s hands were, like, full.
• • •
Kenny needed a glass of water for Julie, who wasn’t feeling well. But his mother was in the kitchen and he stood in the hall, trying to figure out what to do.
He felt the beating of his heart. Lily and Violet were in the living room, rearranging chairs for tonight’s music. In a house full of people, this could be his only chance
Maybe he should quit thinking of her as his mother and regard her as a fellow human being who had made terrible mistakes as he had surely done and, God help him, could possibly do again. Maybe he needed to love her just for being another human being on the planet. He couldn’t say he was thrilled with this idea, but it was the best he could do. He didn’t know what to call her. Not Mother. Not Mama. So maybe he wouldn’t call her anything; the point was to start somewhere.
Before he left, his grandma and grandpa in Oregon had said, Forgive your mother, son. No long-winded sermon. Just: Forgive your mother, we love you, and you and the family come home safe.
Had he deserved people like his adopted grandparents, who weren’t even kin? People who literally saved his life? God had been merciful. He wanted to be merciful, too. He was the only one who could open the channel between his children and their grandmother. If he could do this with his head, maybe later it would move to his heart.
‘Jesus,’ he whispered.
His mother was washing dishes at the sink.
He couldn’t speak, even though he had nothing to say. She turned and wiped her hands with a cloth, and moved toward him and offered her hand, warm from the dishwater. He took it, but could not look into her eyes.
Somewhere in her flesh, he felt a mild flutter, a trembling as of wings. His instinct was to draw back. But he held on. Held on to the fluttering thing in the faraway universe of this other person, and then he was weeping. He could not look up but knew that she was also. He held on as the flutter dissolved into a beat, the pumping engine of their hearts.
He glanced at her briefly, and went to the library and asked Lace if she would take Julie a glass of water.
Then he left the house and walked across the field, into the hollow of silence that comes with snow.
• • •
Sammy was sitting on the kitchen porch when he came back from the field.
He stamped snow off his boots. He needed to get in there to check on Julie. ‘What’s goin’ on, brother?’
‘Tryin’ to g-get my head together.’
‘Who isn’t?’
They were silent for a time.
‘Forgive her, Sam.’
‘No way.’
‘She made choices people suffered for. But she was sick. At least try to forgive her for what happened to the rest of us. I know that what she did to me was really hard on you, but don’t hold out because of that. If she hadn’t swapped me for the jug, God knows where I’d be now.’
Sammy stood and went inside. His mind was made up. And he didn’t like people trying to change it.
• • •
Tell you what,’ said Dooley. ‘Sammy’s here to enjoy some family time, so he’s gonna shoot just one game. We’re gonna draw the name of his opponent, so get ready to show him what you’ve got. Willie, can we use your hat?’
Willie handed off his beat-up headgear, pleased to be asked.
‘Somebody pass around a sheet of paper and a pen.’
‘I will!’ said Rebecca Jane.
‘Okay, write your name, tear it off, fold it up and drop it in th’ hat. This is big-time, folks. Somebody in this room will get to challenge the Shark of Chicago. Ace this game and you’ll win th’ first annual Meadowgate eight-ball championship! See th’ shirt Sam’s wearing? Rio is his new sponsor. A cue maker. Thinks Sammy has th’ magic.’
Whistles. Applause. Cowbell.
‘So Jack will draw a name and if you can beat Sam Barlowe . . .’ He paused, looked around the room. ‘ . . . you get to clean up th’ supper dishes.’
Moans, groans.
‘Ain’t nobody in this room gon’ beat Sammy,’ said Willie, ‘so ain’t no supper dishes gettin’ washed t’night.’
• • •
She may never have a chance to actually exchange words with her son. If she could shoot a game with him, somehow t
hat might be a kind of communication—all the guilt and sorrow and love becoming its own language in the flow of the game. She hadn’t played pool in years, but a long time ago, before she started blacking out and getting fired from work, she’d been good at it; it was instinctive to her. She had actually won a few matches.
The trembling was uncontrollable. How could she possibly . . . ?
She looked at Buck. He nodded, put his hand on her shoulder.
She tried to control the trembling as she inscribed her name on the small slip of paper.
Pauline Barlowe Leeper
• • •
Jack drew a name and handed it to Dooley.
Cynthia was sitting on the sofa with Marge and Doc. Etta and Ethan perched like birds on the back, and Jack climbed up there, too. She loved the excitement in the room, the good tension. This was the Barlowe family lottery.
Dooley looked at the slip of paper, unable for a moment to speak. He blinked, felt the breath go out of him.
‘Pauline Barlowe Leeper.’
No whistles, no applause. Silence. No one moved. Cynthia thought it was like the game of Freeze, which she had played with friends at school.
Sammy took a stick from the rack, the one he had used at the wedding, and chalked the tip. His heartbeat was deafening. He would never have figured this.
She was just standing there. What was she waiting for?
‘G-grab a stick,’ he said, angry for having to say it.
He remembered almost nothing about being a kid before she made him go live with his goon-head daddy. Those years had wiped out the memory of nearly everything that went before. He remembered only the violence of his life with Clyde Barlowe, the humiliation, the disgrace he felt for having been shoved into it with no one to turn to, no one to come looking for him. Dooley would definitely have come, but who could know where he’d gone with a stone-crazy highwayman who was liable to end up anywhere?
He did remember his kid brother Henry, who carried around a pool ball that he called a pooh baw. The memory flashed back to him, now, sharp. His mother had brought it home—it was maroon; it was a seven ball.
So what she’d been an alcoholic and didn’t know what she was doing. He knew plenty of booze heads and a few of them had gotten help. She could have done something; plenty of people did something—got off drugs, got off gambling.
She had loved booze more than she loved her kids, how could that be okay? Was that just the way things roll, life goes on? Thank God he was one sober dude when it came to drugs of any kind. No dopehead pool for him. He was going to make it into the Hall of Fame, no question, and he’d have to keep his head straight to do it.
And now here she was, wanting into his life. He had spent most of his years longing for what he figured other kids had—something he’d missed but couldn’t have said what it was. If he truly forgave her, whatever that meant, he would have to stop feeling everything he had constructed. He was used to the old feelings; they played in a loop, over and over, indelible now.
But if Kenny could do it—
He didn’t look at her as he spoke. ‘Let’s lag.’
The players stood side by side at the head rail. Each placed a ball behind the head string, then bent over the table and sighted their ball.
Almost in unison, the balls rolled forward, hitting the foot rail, then rolled back.
There was a murmur in the room.
‘Man!’ said Harley.
‘What happened?’ she whispered to Marge.
‘Pauline won the lag.’
Sammy racked the balls. He didn’t know if somebody in their twenties could have a heart attack. He should have brought his own cue, he knew better than to travel without his sticks. He’d like to walk away from the table, grab his duffel, get into his rental and ride. But no—in the game he chased, he had totally learned rule number one: Keep your cool.
Pauline bent over the table. She was immobile for a long moment.
The break.
‘Yay!’ said Jack, who liked to see the balls scatter.
Pauline stood and pushed her hair behind her ears.
Cynthia saw the old scarring around her left ear, surprised that Pauline had revealed it in what appeared to be a natural gesture. The burn had been serious, disfiguring her ear and requiring grafts that only rudely matched the color of her facial skin. She always disguised it with her hair.
Though this pool table had stood in their dining room for several years, Cynthia admitted that she had never even remotely understood the game. She had happily cheered for both players, and right now was no exception.
She looked up as Kenny came to the door. She saw that he signaled Dooley, who left the room.
Sammy sank a ball, then another.
Dooley came back to the door, caught Hoppy’s eye, and Hoppy went out.
No one else appeared to notice the comings and goings; their attention was riveted on the table and the players. Even the children were absorbed.
Now Dooley came into the library again and left with Lace.
She glanced at Timothy, who stood near the table and hadn’t seemed to notice. Since childhood, her modus operandi had been to put two and two together. Julie hadn’t felt well or looked well. Kenny had come for Dooley, Dooley had come for Hoppy, then for Lace. And just now, she saw Timothy looking toward the door and slipping out to the hall. A doctor and a cleric . . .
She felt a momentary panic. What should she do? She would do nothing; she had not been called out. She moved to sit on the arm of the sofa for a better view, prayed for the unknown, and forced herself to study the faces in the library.
Clearly, the game in this room was about more than pool. It was about the future of a family.
• • •
He was sweating like a horse. He was used to sweat. But this was different. He didn’t feel stressed as he might if he was baggin’ five hundred bucks; he didn’t feel anything. He was numb, playing by numbers. The sweat poured out of something he didn’t understand.
He hunkered over the table, shot the seven ball into the side pocket. Shot the five ball into the left corner pocket.
‘Gon’ clear th’ table,’ muttered Harley.
Pauline was strangely relaxed in her shoulders, in her back, all the tight places that had stored so much dread and self-hatred. Whatever strategies she was using seemed given to her, fluid and full of a certain happiness. It was not a competition; it was nothing she would ever have expected. It was as if she and her son were teammates, conspiring toward the same goal, the same win.
• • •
Dooley literally ran down the stairs, drying his hands on a towel. ‘What happened?’
‘Mom won,’ said Pooh.
‘No way. Come on.’
‘Sammy made a beautiful cut on his last ball,’ said Doc Owen, ‘but it didn’t fall. He got lucky and left your mom behind the two ball so she didn’t have a clear shot on the eight.’
‘So Mom called the eight in the corner pocket,’ said Pooh, ‘and massé’d around the two, hittin’ both cushions and barely missin’ the eight.’
‘It was a great shot, just came up a little short,’ said Doc. ‘It gave Sammy ball in hand on the two, which he put in the pocket and then it was straight in on the eight.’
‘There’s no way he would have followed the eight in,’ said Dooley.
‘Not that he missed the shot, because he didn’t,’ said Pooh. ‘He made it, and followed the cue in behind it.’
‘Did he let her win?’ he asked his brother.
‘All we know is, she played amazing pool.’
‘Now we know where Sammy got his pool gene,’ said Doc. ‘The apple never falls far from the tree.’
‘But did he let her win? There’s no way he could have missed th’ shot you just described.’
‘Sammy don’t let people win,�
�� said Harley.
‘Where were you, anyway?’ Pooh asked Dooley.
‘I’ll let Kenny tell you. Great news goin’ on up there.’
Willie held his hat close to his heart as if were a trophy. He didn’t say much, but he felt he had to say this. ‘Give it to ’er, boys. Your mama won th’ game.’
• • •
Hoppy washed up.
It had been a comparatively easy delivery among the couple thousand he’d done. Mother fine, baby fine. There was no need that he could see for Julie and the baby to make a trek to the hospital. Let them rest, for Pete’s sake.
Dooley had been a good scrub nurse, Lily and Violet had changed the bed linens and dealt with the basin, Julie had drunk water, the baby was nursing. Beautiful!
Julie held out her hand to Kenny, beaming. ‘It’s not James Wesley!’
He kissed her damp forehead, touched the cheek of the newest Barlowe. ‘There’s red in her hair,’ he said with a kind of wonder. ‘Colleen? Or Daisy? We liked both of those.’
‘You can send Etta and Ethan in,’ Hoppy told Kenny. ‘This is a big event. They’ll remember it for a lifetime.’
‘Ask your mom to come up, too,’ said Julie.
Kenny hesitated.
‘Please,’ said Julie.
• • •
Etta clattering down the stairs, shouting.
‘Ith a thithster! Ith a thithster!’
Etta tugged on Lace’s shirt. ‘Aunt Lathe, we could put it in th’ manger till th’ baby Jeseth comths!’
‘It’s another angel!’ said Jack. ‘Dad said Granpa Hoppy made this one come out! But where did it come out from? In your whole studio, there’s no place for angels to come out from ’cept th’ closet or th’ bathroom. Was it stayin’ in there an’ we didn’t know it?’
‘In a minute, honey. Please help Ethan get the top off his juice. Let me talk with Dad.’
She drew Dooley into the hall room and closed the door.
‘Where’s Mom?’ he said.
‘She was here a minute ago, I don’t know. They say it was an incredible game. Listen, Dooley, we have to tell Jack soon. Right away. He’s terribly bright and curious and asking all these questions. He’s a little farm boy, after all, he needs to know these things. Especially since . . . ’